Last shower for a month

I’m about to jump into the shower for the last time in a month. And I’m pretty excited to do so, because for the next month, it’ll be all about sponge baths and measuring out every single drop of water I use.

I’m excited to be part of the Water Conservation Challenge once more this year. Last year’s challenge was….well….challenging! But it was not impossible and hearing all the fantastic stories from my friend about how they were now thinking more about their water use – it made it all worth while.

I’m participating from back in my homeland of New Zealand this year. People have been asking me “Why worry about conserving water in New Zealand? We get plenty of rain”. This is true – we do not have to worry too much about water quantity – yet. But there are many other reasons to conserve water. Tremendous amounts of energy go into treating water and pumping it into our homes – only for 80 – 90 % of it to go back into the wastewater system, virtually unchanged and have to be treated again. So saving water saves energy.

Another good reason to leave as much water as possible in our rivers and lakes is that they are becoming so polluted. Forget the NZ 100% Pure motto. The way we are pumping effluent into our waterways, we will be NZ 5% Pure before too long. Already we are seeing “do not swim here” notices at so many of our countries popular swimming spots. So the way I see it, the more water we have in our waterways to dilute the crap that’s going in – the better.